Get a single view of the customer. Collect data from multiple places to improve analysis of individual customers.

Model the behavior of the customer so you can predict which ones are the best to do business with.

Collect and manage conversations about you online and offline.

Contact customers when and how they want to be contacted.

Organize marketing content so that it can be targeted at a specific customer, delivered at the right time and in the right context. Automate the delivery of content that supports different customer interactions—call center, sales call, for example—and different events that occur, such as high number of transactions.

Improve interactions with customers on your Website. Can you make your site respond to the customer’s actions and history on the site?

Better measure and manage marketing activities.

I can’t overstate the importance of getting a single view of the customer. Without that it’s very difficult to get the management information you need to tune your demand generation and lead nurturing. Today you may have multiple marketing activities engaging with any individual customers, and many of these touches may be from external agencies and business partners. If you can take a customer-centric, rather than just a tactic-centric view of the activity (either in your existing CRM or elsewhere) then this is the first step towards seeing your activity from the client’s perspective. Investment in this now will pay dividends in the future.